(Editor's note: This story appears in the current edition, the Spring issue, of Central New York Sports magazine.)

Syracuse, N.Y. -- While it’s true that Brandon Triche was meant for a basketball court the way a sailor is meant for the sea, it’s not altogether illogical to turn to Honus Wagner for a bit of insight into the young man.

Dead now for 54 years, and a shortstop when he wasn’t, Wagner could always explain guys like Triche, the intuitive freshman who has already helped to lead the 2009-’10 Syracuse University men’s basketball team into the history books and may yet push it deeper into them.

Infielder? Point guard? In the end, Wagner, the old Hall-of-Famer, would tell us there’s little difference.

“There ain’t much to being a ballplayer,” he used to say, “if you’re a ballplayer."

Well, that’s what Triche is, isn’t he? A ballplayer. An old-fashioned, do-a-bit-of-everything, can’t-dent-him-with-a-mallet ballplayer who knows his game as a butcher knows beef.

“I go back to those days when Brandon came to the Syracuse Basketball Camp,” said Mike Hopkins, one of the Orange’s assistant coaches. “And I remember thinking, ‘This guy was born to play basketball.’ He had a knack. He knew how to get into the lane. He had a feel for the game. He just had, you know, ‘it.’ He was really an uncommon kid.”

Triche was 8 years old at the time. And while that didn’t make him Mozart, it did make him a whole lot more than a curiosity to those in charge of SU’s sneakered empire.

“I remember ‘Hop’ watching Brandon,” offered Brandon’s uncle, Howard Triche, who started 70 consecutive games at small forward for the Orangemen in the mid-to-late ’80s, including that national-championship affair with Indiana in 1987. “And he said to me, ‘We’re going to keep our eye on this kid.’ And I said, ‘Yes, you will.’ And they did.”

Happily for the followers of Syracuse basketball, Hopkins and his boss, Jim Boeheim, never stopped gazing. And as they watched Triche bloom at Jamesville-DeWitt High School, which he led to two state titles (and to an overall record of 73-6 during his three complete seasons with the Red Rams), they saw their future.

After Dwayne Washington and Sherman Douglas and Adrian Autry and Lazarus Sims and Jason Hart and Gerry McNamara and Jonny Flynn running things out of the backcourt, there would be Brandon Triche -- born in Syracuse, raised around Syracuse, destined to star for Syracuse. And the Orange wheels would just keep rolling along.

And they have. One date deep into February, SU’s record stood at 22-1, which made for the greatest 23-game start in school annals. And the reasons are many. There has been talent, there has been tenacity, there has been a tenor of unselfishness. And there has been Triche, who was producing 9.8 points, 3.2 assists and 1.9 rebounds (and shooting 53% from the floor) in those 23 contests during which he’d averaged 22.3 minutes of court time.

A ballplayer, remember?

“I think I’ve been doing things all right,” said Triche, who began attending Orange games at the Carrier Dome when he was in the fifth grade. “You know, running things. There’s a lot of pressure on a guard, even more so on a freshman just coming in. I know a lot of our fans are thinking that we can go to the Final Four. But if that’s going to happen, I have to be consistent. I can’t force things. I’ve got to keep my turnovers down."

There was no mention of scoring points, even though Brandon generated more of them -- 1,926 -- for Jamesville-DeWitt than all but two players in the history of Section III . . . even though he led SU in scoring in four of those first 23 games . . . even though he was a school-record 6-for-6 from beyond the three-point arc in a conquest of Oakland during Christmas Week.

Scoring points? No, a ballplayer speaks of winning games. And so, Brandon Triche does. His father, Melvin, who suited up for Corcoran High School and Cayuga Community College, taught him that. His uncle, Howard, who at the age of 45 still engages his nephew in the occasional one-on-one match, reinforces that. His cousin, Hart, who started 131 times in his four seasons with the Orange, showed him that.

And as sure as cause can lead to effect, those lessons absorbed have benefitted this wondrous Syracuse team. It has been winning games. This, even though a child (relatively speaking) has led it . . . and never mind that that child stands 6-foot-4 in sneakers, weighs 214 pounds without them and has a body that seems carved from walnut.

That doesn’t mean, however, that Brandon Triche, who turned 19 in February and is quiet and deferential (but neither to a fault), isn’t like most other accomplished athletes. Indeed, he does have his requisite smidge of conceit.

“Some people don’t know about my athleticism,” he said. “But there’s probably a reason for that: I haven’t been showing it. Like, nobody would ever think that I could jump. Until I jump. I can actually jump pretty high. I have a 42-inch vertical, but who would know that? I think if the fans saw me in practice they’d be shocked to see me finish up there at the rim.”

Asked if this life as gray matter bothered him, Triche -- an honest-to-goodness student who put together a 3.4 grade-point average in his first collegiate semester -- quickly shook his head.

“Not at all,” he declared. “My time will come. And, anyway, when people say I can’t jump or I can’t shoot or whatever, it just makes me work harder. So, because of those people I’ll be better off in the end. Besides, I get enough criticism from my brothers to listen to anybody else.”

Those would be Melvin Jr., 25, and Michael, 22, who were under strict orders from their father throughout their youth to bring Brandon with them pretty much wherever they went, especially the local park. Either that, they were instructed, or they couldn’t go, themselves. The result was that little Brandon, who played so much of his basketball against fellas three and four and five years older than he was, didn’t stay little Brandon for long.

Did he get pushed around here and there? Of course, he did. But along the way the learning curve was shortened, the basketball knowledge became vast and the toughness deepened.

And the next thing anybody knew, Brandon Triche -- who just for the heck of it ran, while dribbling a basketball, from Manley Field House to Onondaga Community College one day last summer -- became a four-time All-Central New York choice and a two-time All-State selection who morphed into the point guard waving the Orange baton once held by the great Pearl, his own self.

“You’re talking about a freak here,” submitted Hopkins. “Brandon’s got the body of Paul Harris -- so big and strong and explosive. And he’s got the mind of a coach when he’s out there leading this team. He’s never saying, ‘OK, I’ve got to get mine.’ He’s only doing stuff to make us better. You could argue that Brandon is the best freshman in the Big East. And the Big East might be the toughest conference in America. So, you take it from there.”

And as you do, you can join those folks who squint at Triche and make out a kind of baby Deron Williams, the man’s-man point guard of the Utah Jazz who is more Hummer than Roadster, more denim than silk, and has all but become Triche’s down-the-road vision. Much more obvious, though, to the tens of thousands who’ve again packed the Dome this winter has been Brandon’s demeanor, which has been as steady as that drip in the kitchen sink.

In this chest-pounding/finger-pointing time in which the sports world sags, there has been Brandon Triche -- so far tattoo-free, and wearing uniform No. 25 in homage to Uncle Howard -- with a puss that rarely betrays delight or disgust. The kid makes a good play . . . he falls back on defense. The kid makes a bad play . . . he falls back on defense. And then he shows up for the next game and does it all over again.

“I decided at a young age not to look rattled out there,” Triche explained. “I figured if I had the same face all the time the other team wouldn’t know that I’m affected by a bad play, so they wouldn’t attack me. You know, I don’t want to show weakness. And as for the good plays, if I hit a ‘three’ and go crazy, it’ll look like I never did it before. I try to make things look like I’ve done them before.”

Well, sure. Brandon is, after all, a ballplayer. Ain’t much more to his story than that.

(Bud Poliquin's occasional feature stories, his freshly-written on-line commentaries, his columns and his "To The Point" observations appear virtually every day on syracuse.com. Additionally, his work can be regularly found on the pages of The Post-Standard newspaper.)